Design

We like the N86’s compact size which makes it pocket-friendly, but it’s surprisingly heavy on the scales. The heft lends a very solid feel to the handset, but we suspect some people may be put off by the extra weight. So we suggest that you pick up one of these to make your own judgment. The larger buttons and clear spacing on the numeric keypad are also a treat from the earlier N85’s which was quite a pain to use.

Like the N96 and Sony Ericsson W995 Walkman, the N86 comes with a kickstand at the back. The plastic material is a tad flimsy and feels like it’d break with a minor twist. The good thing is the phone is stable sitting on the desk unlike the W995 Walkman which tends to tip over with a little touch. You can configure the Nokia to activate an application, for instance, the photo gallery, when you lift the kickstand, so that’s a nice touch.

The keylock button on the left is handy, but we didn’t have much use for it since closing the device locks the keypad anyway. It also helps that the sliding mechanism is solid, so we had no qualms with opening and closing the phone numerous times. 

On the front, the design resembles the N97, but the chiclet-sized keys make it seem like a real waste of space on the chassis. Sliding the handset the opposite way from the keypad reveals music playback and gaming controls. These are also on the earlier dual-slider Nokia models, though we find the small buttons not comfortable for prolonged gaming sessions. 

There’s a 3.5mm audio jack, micro-USB port for charging and connecting to the PC and the power switch on the top, while the volume controls and camera shutter sit on the right. For the latter, it was a mixed bag. While it was easy half-pressing to autofocus, holding down the button to snap a picture required a lot more effort. 

Features

The N86 runs on the Symbian S60 3rd edition software with Feature Pack 2. It has a faster 434MHz processor compared with 369MHz on the N85. The difference may not be very significant, but it’s always a good thing to have a faster chip as long as it doesn’t run down the battery quicker. Multitasking and zipping through the menus were a breeze and we didn’t encounter any significant lag.

here’s 8GB of onboard memory which can be increased with a 16GB microSDHC flash memory. As can be expected of a Nokia Nseries handset, a raft of wireless connectivity options is available to the user. These include Wi-Fi, HSDPA, Bluetooth stereo A2DP and Assisted-GPS for navigation. It’s a pity that the HSDPA supports up to only 3.6Mbps and not the faster 7.2Mbps. The digital clock screensaver is a nice touch, but once the power saver mode kicks into action, the display turns off. 

Nokia Maps version 3.01 is preinstalled on the N86 and we like the new features. The 3D landmarks help us identify the surrounding buildings. Only the prominent landmarks are available currently and these are mainly in the city and downtown area. The graphics aren’t fantastic but have enough details for someone in an unfamiliar area to quickly match what he/she sees on the map to a real building. Terrain maps, weather forecasts and a digital compass are also features which we find useful, especially when navigating on foot. 

The N-Gage client wasn’t preinstalled on our review unit, so we had to download it from a Web link on the browser. The application file is about 10MB, so make sure you are on a data plan or don’t exceed your free bundled data (depending on your mobile plan).

On the imaging front, the 28mm wide-angle lens let us in our field tests capture more details on the sides compared with a shooter that has, for instance, a 35mm lens. The camera module will also automatically adjust the aperture from F2.4 to F3.2 and F4.8. A larger aperture (smaller F-stop number) allows more light to hit the sensor, which helps when taking pictures in low-light environments. Earlier phones like the N96 and N82 have fixed F2.8 aperture. You can’t manually adjust the aperture or shutter speed, although you can tweak common settings such as white balance, contrast and color saturation. The camera has a maximum shutter speed of 1/1,000 second for freezing fast-moving action. 

The display washes out under the sun, making it a little more difficult to take pictures. We had to squint in order to make out what was on the display. Barrel distortion was clearly evident on the edges of our photo. The camera processor automatically compresses images taken on the phone and average about 1.5MB compared with, for example, a 3MB file from a compact digital camera.

Aside from the auto mode, three ISO settings–low, medium and high–are available. You can see a comparison of the image quality at different ISO levels as well as a Lab test shot. The latter has a slight green cast under fluorescent lighting when white balance is set to auto. Overall, we were pretty impressed with the image quality and found that a wide aperture on the phone helps when snapping in low light conditions. Unless you are scrutinizing the snaps (pixel peeping), you probably won’t find a huge difference between the N86 and other 8-megapixel camera-phones out there. What’s important is that the camera gave us pictures we’d like to see. Out of the box, the N86 delivered and that’s good. Below are some of the shots taken with the N86. You can click on them to download the full-resolution images for a more up close comparison.

Video capture on the N86 is at VGA resolution at 30 frames per second. We noticed some flickering on the screen when we were recording clips, which was a little distracting. The front-facing camera for video calls wasn’t fantastic and we found images a little jerky when we moved around a little. For video playback, most of the common file formats are supported, except for DivX/XviD. 

Performance

The N86 ships with a 1,200mAh lithium-ion battery, with a rated talktime of over 6 hours and 13 days on standby. On average, we had to charge the device every two days. We didn’t encounter any issues with audio reception and the onboard speakers were sufficiently loud for video calls and music playback. 

The camera took about 2 seconds to start up after sliding open the lens cover. Shutter lag measured 0.25 second and that’s reasonably fast. The only gripe we have is the stiff “second press” after autofocus. We have to press the camera shutter down harder which resulted in us slightly moving the phone just when we are about to take a picture. 

Conclusion

Although not much has changed in the general look and feel of the N86 compared with the N85, the innards have been spruced up considerably with a better camera, faster processor and more built-in memory. Suffice to say, there’s no reason you would go for the N85 when the N86 is priced rather affordably after you factor in a two-year contract from the rack price of S$808. Both the black and white versions of the N86 are currently available in the market.

[by Damian Koh]